1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print system mainly composed of a printer having a paper feeder and a client personal computer.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is a printer available that a feed unit is equipped with a multi-stage paper feed cassette mounting sheets of paper of various sizes and in different directions and a paper feed cassette can be automatically selected according to the size of an image. In the printer mounting a multi-stage paper feed cassette, as a process when sheets of paper are exhausted during execution of the print job, a method for suspending the print job and requesting supply of sheets of paper to an operator or a method for supplying sheets of paper from another paper feed cassette to continue the print job is used.
For example, a method for confirming the residual quantity of sheets of paper set in a paper feed cassette, checking whether sheets of paper to be used are sufficient or not, always reserving a sufficient amount of sheets of paper in the paper feed cassette, thereby preventing suspension of the operation due to exhaustion of sheets of paper during execution of the print job is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application 2002-284393.
In this case, the printer body controls information of residual amount of sheets of paper and compares the residual amount with the number of sheets necessary to print. Although a state that sheets of paper are exhausted during one print job can be prevented, only after print data is all sent from the printer driver to the printer body, error information of exhausted sheets of paper can be decided. Moreover, unless a user comes to the printer body for confirmation, he cannot know the occurrence state of exhaustion of sheets of paper.
Further, when a plurality of users share the same printer and a plurality of print jobs and heavy print jobs are spooled simultaneously, a problem arises that unless these spooled print jobs are all executed, a state of whether exhaustion of sheets of paper occurs or not is unknown.
Therefore, an easily operable printer is desired.